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morningmoonon Ask HN: How should we implement tracking as privacy conscious startups?

What do you need to track, and how will you take action from it? It’s valuable to figure that out first.

You may not need user tracking at all. You can track how many signups came from which domain by setting a cookie with the referrer and incrementing a count for that domain at signup. Here’s an interesting post about it https://doingdone.app/blog/building-a-startup-without-user-t...

morningmoonon A Beginner’s Guide to MMT

"implicit proponent" is an oxymoron.

morningmoonon Amazon to Launch Mobile Ads, in a Threat to Google and Facebook

You don’t have to see any ads online, by using an adblocker and not visiting websites that lack paid ad-free versions (Facebook, Instagram).

morningmoonon San Francisco considers banning cashless Amazon stores

Thanks! Their numbers seem to be far off from the FDIC studies, despite them claiming they corroborate national averages.

Looking at the FDIC study from 2009, ~20% of Black/Hispanic households in California were unbanked, and when looking at citizens the number is ~7%.

morningmoonon San Francisco considers banning cashless Amazon stores

AFAIK these stores employ security/loss-prevention (and stockers as well, just not cashiers). There’s people at the door in the videos I saw. How do they stop people from stealing?

morningmoonon San Francisco considers banning cashless Amazon stores

The article doesn’t link to the study and I can’t find it. “As many as” could mean anywhere from 1 to 50%. Smells like deception, but I could be wrong.

morningmoonon San Francisco considers banning cashless Amazon stores

Then the practical solution is to pass a law requiring them to have a machine to load a card with, not banning them outright.

This policy is needlessly destructive.

morningmoonon San Francisco considers banning cashless Amazon stores

According to Brown, as many as 50 percent of black and Latino households in San Francisco go without a bank account

This stat is hard to believe. Does anybody have a link to the actual study? Most national studies (like the FDIC one) put this number around 5%. My wife works in the restaurant industry, and most all of the illegal immigrants have bank accounts, smart phones, use direct deposit, etc.

morningmoonon Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years

Another reason to use passwordless login. Just send an one-time login code via email.

That’s what my companies do and there’s no way we can leak passwords... there aren’t any!

I honestly don’t understand the point of using passwords when a website allows reset by email.

morningmoonon Commento: Open-Source Disqus Alternative

Instead of using another data silo, consider webmentions. Post a reply on your own blog with rel=“reply-to” and send a webmention notifying the author, who uses a plugin or webmention service to display replies.

It’s decentralized web comments. See indieweb.org for more information.

morningmoonon Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

Agreed. I have yet to find a single use-case that can't be done without JavaScript, with the exception of chat. Like audio and video, chat could have easily been another HTML widget provided by the browser (imagine, standard declarative chat across the web!).

I built my last webapp entirely without JavaScript. Users constantly praise how fast it is. There's no bugs with the back button. It's accessible out-of-the-box. Form inputs work correctly out-of-the-box. It's clear when data is being loaded/submitted and when it's not (since that's already built into the browser). And on and on and on...

JavaScript is the worst thing to happen to UX, privacy, speed, caching, and accessibility. So much of the web's UX is broken because of JS. It's depressing because it was all unnecessary. We went from a standard declarative interface shared by all websites to an "anything goes" black box runtime.

morningmoonon Vim Anti-Patterns (2012)

vim-adventures.com is a great way to learn vim by playing a game.

It’s worth the money if you enjoy solving puzzles and learning by doing.

morningmoonon Ask HN: How do you read the news without getting depressed?

Do you really have to read it?

If you must:

- Choose an rss reader and curate your own sources.

- Read long-form news periodicals instead of the daily news, which tend to be less toxic.

morningmoonon Americans Are Going Bankrupt from Getting Sick

Yeah yeah the deflationary death spiral that’s never actually happened.

Saving is literally keeping money to use it at a later date. So how will you retire without saving? Are you planning on working until you’re dead?

morningmoonon Americans Are Going Bankrupt from Getting Sick

The bulk of research shows the US spends more on healthcare due to higher prices, not more care. Increasing taxes will not solve anything without some sort of strategy to control prices.

One solution is price controls for common, well understood procedures and medications, like most other countries with single-payer. The UK for example, engages in price controls.

morningmoonon Americans Are Going Bankrupt from Getting Sick

- 65% of Americans don't save, despite most having the ability to do so. 1 in 3 have less than $5,000 saved for retirement! It's a massive cultural problem. [1]

- Most Americans live unhealthy lifestyles that contribute to $1.5 trillion in estimated healthcare costs from preventable disease. 1 in 3 Americans have pre-diabetes and 2 in 3 Americans are overweight. 1 in 3 Americans are obese. Again, a cultural problem. [2]

Our culture is toxic and unsustainable. Government can't fix this. It's a generational problem that's been growing with each generation.

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/15/bankrate-65-percent-of-ameri...

[2]: https://blog.bcbsnc.com/2014/06/costly-habits-1-5-trillion-l... [3]:

morningmoonon CowToilet, a Toilet for Cows

Cows don’t really produce much or any milk until after giving birth. Milk is what they feed their babies...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_cattle#Animal_welfare

morningmoonon CowToilet, a Toilet for Cows

Huh? Cows don’t lactate until calving. At least not any appreciable amount.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_cattle#Animal_welfare

Artificial insemination isn’t rape. Keeping them confined isn’t slavery. Slaughtering them to eat them unnecessarily isn’t murder.

morningmoonon CowToilet, a Toilet for Cows

Only cows that have been pregnant produce milk. Cows are made pregnant to increase the duration of milk production, and to produce more cows for dairy or meat. (Edited for clarity)

The process of artificial insemination involves sticking a rod/hand with bull semen into their vaginas. Just do a quick search for this and you can see videos of how artificial insemination works. There’s also a process of hormone injections to ensure cows sync up for more efficient AI.

Usually most farmers justify this by talking about how it’s safer than letting a bull fuck the cow while it’s confined to a pen (how it was done in a bygone era).

Oh, and if you’re wondering about how they get the bull semen they have them fuck artificial vaginas, or masturbate them if that’s not working out.

morningmoonon CowToilet, a Toilet for Cows

So now we’re going to force them to pee by stimulating their urinary nerves!?

Another reason to stop our inhumane practice of enslaving, raping, and slaughtering cows to serve our tastes. We don’t need to do this to have nutritious healthy lives.

morningmoonon Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

Older versions of Internet Explorer did it (3 or 5 can’t recall) Konquerer, Netscape, and lynx too if I recall correctly.

morningmoonon Lambda School (YC S17) now pays eligible students $2k/month

Fantastic work. You and the other founders should be very proud of what you’re doing.

This is exactly what the world needs more of. I recommend this to anyone looking to switch careers.

morningmoonon Facebook backtracks after removing Warren ads calling for Facebook breakup

You might find a problem with that arrangement when you need to buy something that Amazon doesn't or won't carry, and there's nobody else in town

Why would Amazon not selling something prevent someone else from selling it?

morningmoonon Facebook backtracks after removing Warren ads calling for Facebook breakup

Yes, I use Google and the Internet. What's the problem?

To contrast this with healthcare. I can understand diabetics not being able to afford medication for example, or people without the means to afford life sustaining treatments.

Facebook buying Instagram? I don't understand what's wrong with that.

morningmoonon Facebook backtracks after removing Warren ads calling for Facebook breakup

I read her blog post. I don't see anywhere in her post that gives one concrete example of a negative impact on consumers.

She gives the example of Amazon.com forcing diapers.com to sell diapers at a lower price as a reason for why we need to prevent acquisitions. But getting products for cheaper prices benefits consumers... The small business founders got rich and consumers got cheaper diapers. I'm not seeing any problem with that.

She claims Amazon is anti-competitive because they promote their own products on their own website. Websites aren't railroads. Consumers can choose any website by typing in the address in their web browser. Consumers can switch search engines and shopping websites. That was not the case with railroads or phone networks - because for reasons that should be very obvious you can't have a million different railroad lines and telephone wires. Unlike the web, they were physically mutually exclusive.

If a company provided superior service and prices to Amazon consumers can easily choose to use them.

morningmoonon Facebook backtracks after removing Warren ads calling for Facebook breakup

Breakup Facebook rhetoric is so counterproductive. It achieves nothing. It solves no problem.

The country has real problems. “I don’t like Facebook” isn’t even remotely one of them. I won’t be voting for her, that’s for sure.

morningmoonon Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist

I applaud the author for sharing their life experience. Just sharing this may help others.

I want to add that these choices aren't black and white. Tech and helping people aren't mutually exclusive things. The author could have mixed therapy with his tech experience and made websites, apps, or services that helped people with career or relationship problems. Or worked towards getting an IT job at a psychology non-profit. I know it's a simplistic example, but look at the impact a simple app like Calm had on exposing people to meditation and therapeutic techniques.

It's all connected. Nutrition, relationships, rest, play, and work. There's so many opportunities to help people outside of paying a licensed therapist. One way to look at it is to go where people are spending their time: on the phone. We desperately need more wellness awareness where people are already spending their attention.

morningmoonon Show HN: Journali.sm, a Newsfeed for News

A chronological feed without ads, how refreshing!

I have a related idea. There could be an open, machine-readable format websites could publish updates in; and clients that could consume these "feeds" in the way the user chooses. We could call it really simple syndication, or RSS for short. Site owners could even include ads if they want, embed podcasts or videos, and offer different feeds for different topics.

morningmoonon Animals are no less emotional than we are

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. I don’t care to argue about whether we should avoid causing emotional and physical suffering to other beings.

Carnivorous animals kill to survive, unlike all of us living in the modern world.

It’s not just the killing, it’s the whole process of enslaving, breeding, raping, mutilating animals just to serve our tastes. If you think I’m being melodramatic don’t take my word for it. You can see the terrible suffering inflicted on animal farms and slaughterhouses only a quick google search away.

It’s not necessary. We aren’t living in the bush having to kill another animal in order to live.